Vehicles, particularly motor vehicles used for transporting people must meet defined safety requirements in their interior space to substantially avoid or at least substantially reduce personal damage as a result of the vehicle being involved in an accident.
The impact areas of a head of a person or persons sitting in the interior of the vehicle, i.e. all unglassed surfaces of the interior of the vehicle with which the head of a person could come into contact during relative acceleration as a result of an accident should be designed with delay valves reaching in milliseconds equal to or smaller than 80 gm. It is also desirable that the interior surfaces of any such vehicle, and also interior equipment or installations therein be designed, particularly, in the impact area of a head, with a sufficiently large deformation path without any breaking or shattering characteristics.
Such safety requirements are particularly desirable for motor vehicles designated as the so-called recreational vehicle or caravan equipped with seating groups in the form of cushioned seat, i.e. cushioned seats which permit a variation in seating groups. A seating group which is arranged successively behind each other in the vehicle in longitudinal direction (See DE-GM No. 77 73 061) such that the seating group can be brought at least into a so-called drive position and a so-called living position, and in most cases also into a so-called sleeping position. In the drive position of the seating group, the combined seats and/or seat benches are adjusted in a uniform position with the cushioned back rests in a position toward the rear of the driving direction. However in the living position, two adjacent cushioned seats in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle and/or bench seats have a homologous position with respect to each other, i.e., the front cushioned seat or the bench seat has an adjustment in the driving direction whereby the cushioned back rest is facing toward the driving direction, whereas the other cushioned seat or sofa seat remains in position.
For the sleeping position, two associated seats or bench seats may be adjusted behind each other in a driving direction so that three cushioned seats or cushioned bench seats are arranged in close relationship behind each other in the same plane, whereas the fourth cushioned seat or cushioned back rest is brought into flat inclined position so as to serve as a raised head rest.